The Protagonist's Death (If You Want to Leave a Comment, Please Do-The Author Loves Discussion)

Harrot's death had been planned from the very beginning. In fact, the entire book had been conceived starting from this point.

But I hadn't originally intended for Harrot to die so early. The initial outline had him dying after the pioneering campaign succeeded, and the cause of death was related to a major plot hole I planned to dig later.

But I changed the outline in the end. Let me explain why.

During the castle defense battle, one of the main forces had to die in the grueling fight against the Centaur Commander.

That meant one among Harrot, Marcus, and Tiona. The Bald Man was slightly too weak to qualify.

No matter how much the Centaur Commander had been nerfed or how useless he had become, he was still half a Legendary Expert. If killing a few minor fodder soldiers solved everything, it would be far too childish and fake, and the prestige of "Legendary Expert" would plummet.

For a long time in my book, Legendary Experts were the ceiling of combat power, because I didn't want to write a high-power setting where gods walked everywhere and dragons were as common as dogs.

An overabundance of Legendary Experts would seriously undermine the romance of leading troops into war and developing territory through farming. That was completely different from the story I wanted to write.

Besides, the Centaur Commander's four Legendary Abilities had really been nerfed beyond recognition.

His regeneration was suppressed by flames. Shockwave was used to destroy traps, yet it didn't kill a single person. Originally, that move could have casually insta-killed Tiona, Marcus, or any other character.

As for War Stomp, I simply waved my hand and cut it outright under the excuse that "the Archmage reinforced the castle foundations," refusing to let him use it.

The final